Felon and Knife
by Peppery
Summary: The Masked Felon meets the Knife of Dunwall-Corvo and Daud's fight in the Flooded District. From a Low Chaos standpoint, because I'm a hopeless goody-two-shoes.


A full day did not pass between their capture of Corvo and the appearance of Thomas in Daud's office, bearing bad news.

"What is it?" Daud asked, noticing Thomas's tense shoulders.

"Corvo's vanished from confinement, from the whole area, and the men on duty swear they saw absolutely nothing." He shrugged. "It sounds—impossible, I know. The Greaves Refinery's restarted. What do you make of it?"

"That he knows your work better than you do. Deal with the sentries as you see fit. As for Corvo, I suspect that in time he will come to me here." Daud rubbed the back of his marked hand. "He'll have to."

Thomas nodded but didn't leave. He strode off and leaned against a bookshelf, presumably to keep watch for Corvo. Daud sighed, but in truth he was glad for some kind of company. He'd been too long alone with his own thoughts, which, with the mention of the Lord Protector, were turning back to the man he had so recently brought down.

Daud turned on his audiograph player. He had to get it all out of his head.

"So you've lost it all. Ruined at last, Lord Regent. Royal Spymaster. Hiram Burrows. You small, worried man."

Daud leaned over the desk, a heavy weight on his back that he still could not explain.

"You'll never know how many times I've thought about getting close to you again, just to put a piece of sharp metal in your eye. But now there's no need."

Thomas looked over at Daud but made no comment.

"You've been taken down by the same apparatus that gave you life to begin with: laws and courtrooms and the mighty swell of public outrage. Good riddance to you, sir. So many schemes you had and so many contracts."

Daud turned, hands clasped behind his back, to look at faces of the dead plastered on the wall.

"How many people did I kill for you? None like the last." His eyes were drawn to her face, her dark and condemning eyes. "None like her. I'd give back all the coin if I could." He turned away. "No one should have to kill an empress."

Thomas had moved toward Daud and now stood alarmingly still in front of him. Daud frowned, but before he could open his mouth to ask what was the matter, Thomas simply turned on heel and walked out of the room.

Cold realization swept through Daud, and it made him laugh without humor. Those were not the light steps of an assassin, but a man in control of an unfamiliar body, one that was not his own.

"I recognize your footsteps, Corvo."

There was the thud of a body hitting the floor; Daud flinched, afraid for Thomas even though he knew Corvo had never killed a man.

The Lord Protector stepped into the room then, returned to his own body with that awful mask and a mark to match Daud's. He had the power of the Outsider on his side, but he'd taken a path very different from others with that gift. Others like Daud, for whom blood was currency. This man had taken out battalions of guards and corrupt nobles without a drop of blood to his name—not even that of the man who had his Empress killed.

Before Corvo could take a step, the Whalers appeared at Daud's side as if they'd been waiting. They stood between Corvo and Daud, each with a sword pointed at the Lord Protector's heart. He raised a crossbow, but Daud waved his hand and time froze.  
"And now we fight the duel that no two others could fight, against the ticking of the clock."

Daud had spent years around assassins in masks, yet he could not read Corvo's reaction. Corvo did, however, lower the crossbow. When time returned to its normal pace, Daud ordered the Whalers away.

"Leave us—I have to do this alone." After a moment of hesitation, the Whalers vanished as quickly as they'd come. They would not disobey an order from Daud.

It wasn't anger that prompted the order, but respect. If Corvo wanted to kill him, Daud would at least go out with a fair fight. Perhaps it was an attempt to make up for all he'd done.

Corvo drew his sword, recovered from a den of weepers. Daud was sure Corvo had never used it against a human, but he held it like someone who'd known a sword all his life. He was reminded again, so strongly, that Corvo was Serkonan just like him. They were almost two sides of the same coin.

Corvo moved toward Daud like he was _bleeding;_ a broken man adrift in a sea of strange faces. Daud didn't put him there, but he drove the blade that broke him. He was not going to make that mistake again.

Daud raised his hand and when he closed it, Corvo pitched forward. His arms wheeled as he tried to stay where he was, but the force drew him forward regardless.

"I've waited for this," Daud said, leaving out the part that it had been in agony, knowing Corvo was coming and knowing why—_you kill her you killed her you killed her._

When Corvo was near enough, Daud dropped his hand to stop the ability. But when he blinked, Corvo suddenly stood several feet to his left. The mark on his hand burned bright.

Daud smiled narrowly. "Let's see if the Outsider will save your life or mine."

Corvo leveled the crossbow at his head, but Daud Blinked away and the bolt stuck in the wall. In his haste, Daud found himself just too far from Corvo to strike. Out of habit, he froze time with a wave of his hand, but Corvo didn't pause. He lunged like an angry, wild animal.

The assassin dodged easily, but Corvo leapt forward again. It was a familiar dance, forward and back, steel and steel—and blood, when a blow could be landed, which was not often. They were both so fast, and the flashing power of the Outsider only made it faster, too fast to be frightening, too fast to be real.

Daud had to speak to stay focused, and he said whatever came into his head. "Why are you fighting? For the men who poisoned you and left you to die?"

He struck at Corvo's face, but the Lord Protector's blade caught his with a screech. Pushing against his sword so strongly that Daud struggled to stay standing, Corvo made a sound like a growl and a roar.

Trapped, suddenly terrified, Daud tried to break Corvo's concentration. "For your dead Empress?"

Corvo shoved his sword so hard that it cut Daud's cheek. The assassin stumbled into his desk, completely open for a fatal blow that did not come. When he got to his feet, he faced the masked man with a snarl.

"Go on, strike as if you mean it!" he spat, then stepped out of Corvo's reach. "You know I killed her."

The fight went on, slower but fiercer, both locked in on each other. The screech of metal, heavy pounding of feet, rotted smell off the streets—it all faded as Daud focused on the man spinning around him, a whirlwind of hatred…as the fight went on, he realized Corvo was going to kill him, this man who had never killed in his life.

Didn't he deserve it?

"Fool!" Daud made a fist, drawing Corvo towards him again. "We're of the same breed, you and I. We kill for others."

Corvo bared his teeth, trying to keep his mind on the fight. If he lost concentration for a moment—he did not pause to think of what would happen. He felt nothing but anger, and he kept even that pushed out around him like armor.

"You think I'm your enemy?" Daud shouted. "I've never lied to you."

They stood in the open window now, struggling over a long fall. Corvo slammed his hilt into Daud's chin, knocking him out of his way. Corvo leapt back into the room, away from the drop. The assassin yelled, jumping after him. Daud slashed Corvo's arm before Corvo could turn to face him. Corvo whirled around and cut him across the shoulder.

Daud yelled, twisted away, and said with a sneer, "Hit harder! You're not fighting Lady Boyle now."

Corvo wanted to laugh; he hadn't fought Lady Boyle, he'd choked her unconscious in a wine cellar, then dumped her off with a crazy man in a mask. Who did Daud think he was? A killer like him?

He saw Jessamine's face, like vivid reality, in his mind. His concentration fractured, broken by rage. He had snuck about like a criminal, hiding and choking, sparing men who would sooner run him through.

Mercy and something like honor had stayed his hand before. But all his mercy had not stopped the Loyalists from poisoning him. It didn't matter to them, they didn't care. Why should he?

Corvo and Daud locked eyes. Jessamine flooded his mind and he did not have a bit of mercy for the man who killed her.  
_ You cannot save her you cannot save her you cannot save her._

Corvo's strength burst like whale oil on fire. He flew at Daud, a furious storm. The honor he'd clung to was gone, replaced with the need to avenge Jessamine, her smile, her laugh, her blood. The assassin raised his sword, preparing for collision.

The clash of swords was so sudden and shocking and loud that they both faltered. Then, blades locked, they both struggled to gain the upper hand.

"This is who protected the empress?" Daud said.

Corvo, blood roaring in his ears, forced Daud's sword out of the way and slammed his hilt into Daud's jaw. The assassin staggered, and in that half-second Corvo slashed his sword in two sweeping arcs across Daud's chest. The floor turned red with blood.

Corvo drew back to strike a final blow, but Daud was suddenly gone. Frustration and sadness and anger burned in Corvo's heart and exploded. He screamed, collapsed on his knees, reeling with grief.

When Corvo screamed, the Whalers flocked to Daud's side. They circled their leader, ready for a fight. A profound affection flooded him; they knew what the man behind the mask was capable of, and they knew why he was here. But they stood by Daud and protected him regardless.

Daud shook his head. "No, no, get out of here. Leave me."

One of them—Rinaldo, he could tell—crouched and grabbed Daud's arm. He could see Rinaldo's eyes behind the Whaler's mask.

"Go," Daud said.

Rinaldo stood slowly. He and all the others hesitated with their eyes on Daud. He nodded to each of them, and one by one they Blinked and were gone.

Corvo appeared. He walked toward Daud like a weeper while Daud forced himself to knees, an arm across his bloody chest. He believed Corvo would kill him, and he deserved it. He deserved it all.

But he did not want to die. He looked up at Corvo and spoke.

"I have one more surprise for you. I ask for my life. When I killed your Empress and took her daughter, something broke inside me." He wondered if Corvo believed him, but found he found he didn't care. It was true regardless. "Now, I see the design on the back of your hand, the mark of the Outsider himself, and I remember all I've done."

Daud had to say it all now. He had to tell someone how meaningless it all seemed, because someone had to know that Daud held regret in his heart. He had never told another person, not even Billie—especially not Billie. But now, faced with death, he needed someone else to know that he was sorry for it all. He who had killed so many…

"But what have I accomplished?" he asked, a question that had plagued him since he killed the Empress. "More than you have? Or much less?"

His words turned bitter. "I remember bending at the shrines, listening as the Outsider whispered that I was going to change things, that I was somehow important. It felt good, made me believe I was powerful."

He glanced at the glove that hid his mark. When he looked back at the man whose life he'd destroyed, Daud saw something he had never expected to see—the man he could have been. He realized he could still be that man.

"Now I want nothing but to leave this city. And fade from the memory of those who reside here. I've had enough killing.

"The men you worked for asked you to kill for them, but you found some other way. You took a path I could have followed, but did not.

The Outsider had been right; it all came down to Corvo, now.

"So my life is in your hands. Make your choice."

Corvo stared at Daud and tried to remember all he knew about the man. He was an assassin. He was called the knife of Dunwall. He kidnapped Emily. He killed Jessamine.

And what of himself? The Loyalists asked him to be an assassin. He was called the masked felon. Burrows, not Daud, had Emily kidnapped and Jessamine killed.

What if the same man who came for Daud years ago had come for Corvo instead? Would Corvo be in the same place as Daud was now, bleeding, broken?

He didn't know. He didn't want to.

Jessamine was dead, and blood wouldn't bring her back. It was Emily who needed him now.

Corvo stepped back.

"And you choose mercy. Extraordinary."

Corvo blinked, and Daud was gone. Maybe they'd both find a better life, when all this was over.


End file.
